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Timor-Leste: a fairly normal day

.0800. Walk to work – 25 minutes. Hot hot hot. Sweaty and gross. Didn’t get run over. That’s a win.

.0830. Espresso coffee with ice cubes. Perfect.

.0900. Work. It’s good. I like the people I work with; I just wish the aircon worked. And the internet, that would be nice too.

.1300. Return from a nice lunch with a mate. My desk has disappeared. Ok that’s fine.

.1400. Sitting in the meeting room with four other displaced persons, including the chap I share a desk with (did I mention that I share a desk?) – Through the meeting room window I watch someone casually claim my desk chair. The air-conditioning works in the meeting room, so I don’t really mind. You can have the chair. It’s all good.

Background: Almost three weeks ago, Maun Amenu went AWL. His job is to look after my shitty little flat (mop the floors, do laundry, empty the bin: not much).

.1730. Leave work (deskless, chairless) walk home. Cat jumps out of the mango tree, and asks for a pat and a feed. Good cat.

.1800. Hand wash my filthy clothes in equally filthy stinky bore water. It’s all most unsanitary. The water is so disgusting that it stains the white work polo shirt that I’m meant to wear on Fridays. Shit.

After one wash ….

.1830. Just finish on the clothes, wondering if they are any less filthy than when I started, and the power goes out. No surprises, I’m without either power or what passes as water quite a bit.

.1900. I light candles and think that the darkness is the PERFECT time to sweep the floor – I can’t really see the faces of the cockroaches, and the gore of half eaten bits of geckoes, and the puffy clouds of cat hair. (Amenu, it’s been three weeks, mate!) So I sweep away by candle light.

.2200. I put myself to bed to read. Still no power – so it’s hot. HOT. No fly screens so I can’t really open the windows – not that my place is even remotely insect proof.

.2300. Power comes back on and I’m soaking wet with sweat and don’t care.

Ah my glamorous life. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I do miss Amenu.

Please come back Amenu.

Amenu in happier days, when he picked a mango for me from the top of the tree.